Peggy was there because Jane had indeed been asked—in a message brought by Tim Snowe—to help with the harvest supper at Allerbrook. At the supper, Francis had exchanged politenesses with her as though she were a mere acquaintance, and both Beth and Letty seemed awkward, not sure what manner to adopt toward this former daughter of the house who was now the wife of a mere tenant. But Peggy had been just the same as ever, and Peggy had offered to help her when her baby was born. Francis had raised no objection.
Peggy indeed had enlivened the early stages of Jane’s labour by saying a few things about Francis.
“Hope this baby takes after you and not his dad. Your brother disparaged you, marryin’ you off to Hudd. Aye, disparaged, that’s the old word folk used to use, wasn’t it, when a girl was pushed off into a marriage not good enough for her? I tell ’ee, it’s done Master Francis no good.”
“What do you mean?” said Jane, grabbing for the rope.
“You and Francis both said you chose to marry Hudd, but folk b’ain’t stupid. It’s got round, what you say about why you come home from court, and what Mistress Stone says, and most folk believe you. And they reckon that when you go claimin’ you wed Harry Hudd for choice, that’s like sayin’ two and two make five. He’s made two tries at courting a new wife, has your brother. Good families, that’s what he’s interested in, but they’ve heard how you’ve been treated and they don’t like it.”
“Peggy, you shouldn’t say things like that. If Francis heard you…oh, God’s teeth…!”
“You’re doin’ all right. He won’t hear, don’t worry. But I tell ’ee, he wanted to get rid of Lisa ’cause he said she kept lookin’ at him as if she didn’t hold with him. She knew he’d turned against her, and when she heard that Mistress Dorothy needed a maid, she went and asked for the job and got it. Told me she was offered better pay than she ever got from your brother. I daresay she did give ’un some funny looks. She reckoned you were badly treated, too. You ought to be married to a proper young fellow like that Ralph Palmer.”
“Dorothy wouldn’t have liked that much!”
“Well, he’s wed to Dorothy now and I just hope she can hold ’un. That horse Silvertail nearly threw your brother during the procession back from the church, by the way. Horrible animal, that horse is. Your brother keeps tryin’ to train ’un into better manners but he’s getting nowhere fast, if you ask me.”
“The horse is an entire,” said Jane. “He might be more manageable if he were gelded.”
“I’d sell ’un if he were mine,” said Peggy. “For dog meat!”
“Oh, Peggy!”
Now, as the process of giving birth neared its climax, Jane said, “I’m glad I’ve got you, Peggy. I don’t like any of the Haywards.”
“No one likes the Haywards,” said Peggy. “Specially Tom. It weren’t so bad when he were younger, but nowadays I don’t let Beth or Letty go far, not without one of our men. We can trust ours, and Tim Snowe, he’s a rock. Looks after Susie that well.”
“I heard they had a little girl.”
“Aye, they have, little Phoebe, and Tom Hayward, he don’t go near Susie since Snowe caught him hangin’ round the place ogling her and sayin’ things—you know what I mean. Snowe knocked him flat, for all Tom’s so big and hefty, and then picked ’un up and chucked ’un into a ditch. I watch over the wenches, even Letty, pocks or no pocks. Nasty creature, Tom is. Ah! We’re on the move. Now, then…”
“God in heaven!” Jane shouted. “What’s happening?”
“Nothing that shouldn’t. Hang on to that rope. Now, a good hard push. Go on, swear if ’ee wants to. I always did. Six I had, and cursin’ all the way.”
“Sod it!” yelled Jane, which was a phrase neither her parents nor Francis nor Eleanor would ever have allowed her to use though Harry used it frequently and on the only occasion when he had heard it from her—when a big pan of cream had turned sour in thundery weather and seriously reduced the next day’s butter production—had just laughed.
“Well done. Here we come…here…we…come! And there he is! You’ve got a boy, mistress, a fine, healthy boy…” A loud wail interrupted her. “Good lungs. No trouble there. Harry’ll be pleased, won’t he? Wanted a son, I heard. What’ll you call him?”
“Harry’s father was called Tobias. He said Tobias, if we had a boy.”
“So, welcome little Tobias,” said Peggy, busying herself with towels. “You did well, mistress. Quick and easy, believe me. Ah well, that’s how it is. One comes, and one goes.”
“One goes? Who’s gone?” asked Jane weakly, letting go of the rope.
“Oh, of course, don’t suppose the news has reached ’ee. Only reached Allerbrook this mornin’ when Master Stone rode up there.”
“Stone? He isn’t here. Clicket Hall has been shut up for three months.”
“It’s open again now. Master Stone’s there now—he’s come to see his wife’s cousins, the ones that live over at Porlock, and tell them about it. She’s dead—Mary, I mean. Got too fat to move and then too fat to breathe, it seems. Came to see your brother and I heard them talkin’. Like I said, one comes and one goes. That’s the way of it. My younger daughter had her first baby just two days afore her father died.”
“Are Dorothy and Ralph with Master Stone?” Jane asked, dimly interested. “Is Dorothy with child yet?”
“Not that I know of, but they’re not there, no. They’re at Dover. Been seein’ Master Peter Carew off, so Master Stone said. They’ve a house near Dover—it was part of Dorothy’s dowry. There’s real wealth in her family. Carew and Master Ralph are friends, it seems—see a lot of each other when they’re both in London.”
“Where was Master Carew going?” Jane asked. She had had no news of Peter Carew for so long, so very long, and yet his memory hadn’t faded. She still thought of him and was parched for word of him.
“Some journey to foreign places. Venice and then Turkey, I think Master Stone said. Some secret task for the king. Now, how’d you like to hold your son?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Blind Corner
1541
Having Tobias was like rounding a blind corner. Jane had had no concept of the pit of love into which she fell the first time she held him. Peter Carew might be lost to her but Tobias, it seemed, had come in his stead. He was beautiful, and he brought her back into some kind of social life, because the women from Clicket and the surrounding farms began coming to call and admire him.
Many of them had been confused by her marriage. They didn’t know whether to go on showing her the deference they had shown to Francis Sweetwater’s sister who had been to court and mingled with royalty, or whether to treat her as simply the wife of Harry Hudd, tenant farmer. Now it was different. Most of them had children, too, and it gave them common ground with her at last. It was like joining a secret society.
Eventually, even Francis considered coming to call.
He would never admit it to Jane, but the reason lay mainly with Dr Spenlove.
Spenlove, who like most other people in Francis’s circle had long since grasped most of the truth about Jane’s marriage, had never attempted to reprove his employer, but he had taken, during household prayers, to including petitions to the Almighty to grant loving and forgiving hearts to all present. No one could very well object aloud to such prayers, let alone dismiss a chaplain for them, but Francis had objected in silence, because the prayers had caused twinges in his conscience. The arrival of Tobias gave him an excuse for softening his attitude to Jane, and he found this quite welcome. After all, the baby she had just produced down at Rixons was his own nephew.
He mentioned the child to Thomas Stone when the latter called on him to pay his respects and report the death of Mary Stone, and Thomas said, “When you see them, congratulate Jane and Harry for me, would you? I’d go in person, but I’m not too well myself these days. I’ve not felt right since Mary went.”
Another good excuse to visit Rixons. Well, Jane had obeyed him in the matter
of her marriage and she seemed to be doing her duty now. He was pleased to learn from Thomas that Carew had gone abroad. The man was a natural-born disturbing influence and better out of the way.
Carew was at that moment in his cabin on a ship called Blue Water. The ship was in the middle of the Bay of Biscay, which was living up to its bad reputation. Carew was not in the least liable to seasickness, but he was annoyed because it was hard to keep the cabin lit. There was a lantern, but it was swinging crazily from the ceiling and it was difficult to study the papers in front of him because of the way the light came and went.
He must study them, though, because they consisted of the instructions the king had given him, along with background details and names of contacts, and he would be well advised to commit as much as he could to memory. He ought to destroy the documents before reaching Venice, let alone Istanbul.
As far as anyone else on board the Blue Water knew, he was an alum merchant on his way to negotiate new contracts with suppliers in Venice and the Aegean. There was nothing remarkable about that. Alum was a valuable mineral, essential as a fixative for dyes. It was a convincing disguise.
Henry VIII, however, who had a businesslike side to him, had received reports that disquieted him. He was all the more inclined to concentrate on these because Kate Howard, the sweet young wife he had named his rose without a thorn, having told him delightedly that she was pregnant, had let him down by losing the baby.
“So you slip your foals, too!” he said crudely when her ladies admitted him to see her. Just like Anne Boleyn were the words that went through his head. And she was a cousin of yours, come to think of it. God’s teeth, does it run in the family?
He was still in a bad temper when Peter Carew, obeying a peremptory summons to the royal apartments, was shown in. Carew did his initial bow not to Henry’s face but to a broad royal back. The king was staring moodily out the window at the grounds of Hampton Court. He had heard Peter being announced, though, and turned around after a moment. “Ah. There you are. You come promptly. I like that.”
His expression, however, wasn’t that of a man who liked anything whatsoever and the adventurer Carew, wary enough when necessary, thought it wise simply to bow again and await instructions. Henry, who was normally affable toward people who hadn’t displeased him, and aware that his ill temper was written on his face, had the grace to adjust his features, smile, sit down, invite his guest to sit down, too, and offer an explanation of sorts for his annoyance.
“I’ve been to a horse fair and I saw too many undersized runts. We need good horses with long legs, Peter, for messengers, for ceremonial processions, for travel in general, even for war. We still have tourneys with heavy armour but in real war, heavy armour’s no use anymore. Breastplates won’t protect men from cannons. The horses that weren’t miserable little runts under fourteen hands,” said Henry, who really had found the horse fair exasperating, “were heavy horses being sold off for draught work because they’re not wanted for armoured knights anymore. They make good plough teams, as a matter of fact. They can do more in a day than oxen can….”
He seemed distracted for a moment and stopped. Peter Carew said cautiously, “Did you wish to see me about horses, sir? I maintain a small stud in Devonshire. Anything I can do…”
Henry pushed away the memory of the tears his young wife had shed at his rudeness and said, “We need horses bred for height and speed but not massiveness. Tell your horsemaster that. But I didn’t call you here to discuss horses. Forgive the digression. I’ve just come from visiting the fair and I had it on my mind, that’s all. Now, listen.”
The problem on Henry’s mind, it seemed, was connected with the steady rise in the power of the Ottomans who now governed Istanbul and were extending their rule. “Since my father’s day,” Henry said glumly, “England has opened up new trade routes. Whole new lands are being discovered. The world grows wider and wider. But not just for us! The Ottomans have insatiable enthusiasm for conquest—and it’s interfering with trade. There are shortages of a number of commodities. I’ve had complaints from merchant companies and anxious reports from Venetian contacts.”
Carew nodded. Owen Lanyon would have nodded, too. He had been infuriated and Stephen had been slapped over the loss of a scarlet dye which was an example of merchandise now becoming difficult to get.
“You’re a travelled man,” King Henry said now. “Go to Venice and Istanbul and find out what the Ottoman intentions are. Find out who they want to make friends with and who they’re planning to gobble up next. Find out who is partnering who in the great pavane of Levantine trade. The secretariat will provide your brief. The clerks have been working on it for days.”
The brief had been ready when he called in at the secretariat to ask about it, along with a passport, and his passage on the Blue Water had already been arranged. He had sailed within two days. He’d barely had time to pack.
The ship tilted wildly again, the lantern swung and a list of useful contacts slid off the table. Peter Carew swore. He had forgotten even the existence of Jane Hudd, née Sweetwater, left behind in far-off Somerset.
Tobias had been baptized and Jane had been churched, both occasions being attended by a number of friends, including Peggy, although not Francis. Now, a few mornings later, having fed her offspring and also the poultry, and laughed at the sight of a distracted mother hen, who had been given a clutch of duck eggs to hatch and was now panic-stricken because the duck chicks were happily taking to the pond, she was working indoors.
She was in fact attacking some cobwebby beams of the main bedchamber with a long-handled broom while Tobias, who was a quiet baby and at the moment a well-fed one, slept fatly in his crib. Violet, Jane hoped, was in the kitchen preparing dinner. The weather was bright, so all the men were out on the farm. She was free to choose her own tasks and think her own thoughts.
One thing she had learned during her marriage to Harry was that although the wedding bond gave him the right of entry to her body, what went on inside her head was still private to her and her alone. No one could control, no one could see, what happened inside anyone else’s head.
If she wanted to imagine that she was cleaning a home that she shared with Peter Carew, then no one could stop her. If she were married to Peter, then no doubt he would often be away from home, but when he returned she would hear, not the clump-clump of Harry’s boots crossing the farmyard but the clatter of hooves and the jingle of a bridle and…
She stopped short, broom uplifted. For from outside, she could hear the clatter of hooves and the jingle of a bridle. Lowering the broom, she made for the window. In the yard Francis was just dismounting from Silvertail, who was fretting at his bridle and tossing his head. Jane pushed the window open. “Francis!”
Her brother looked up. “Jane, there you are.” He spoke quite casually, as though they had never been out of touch. “I decided it was time to visit you, to congratulate you and meet my new nephew. May I stable my horse and come in?”
She had been angry enough with Francis at first, heaven knew, but one couldn’t go on being angry forever, and she hated being estranged from him in this way. It had hurt her that during her one visit to Allerbrook, for the harvest feast, he had behaved as though she were—not a servant exactly, but just another neighbour. Since Sybil was now out of her life, Francis was the only one of her former family that she had left.
There was Violet, going out the kitchen door to greet him. She went downstairs to join them.
It was not a long visit and it was undoubtedly awkward, since neither of them was quite sure what to say to the other. Francis did not ask her if she was happy, although he did ask if Harry was in good health. He behaved as though she had chosen this marriage herself and as though he was taking it for granted that all was well with her.
He admired Tobias and Tobias, always placid, woke up to look at his uncle and wrapped a tiny hand around the forefinger that Francis offered him. “I brought him a rattle to play with,” said Fra
ncis, producing it. Tobias received the gift with contented gurgles.
“A fine child. May you have many more, just as good. Harry must be very pleased,” Francis said as they went downstairs again, with Jane carrying the baby.
“Yes, he is. Will you stay to dine? He’ll be in for that. I don’t suppose you’ve seen him since he paid the rent on Lady Day.”
“No, I haven’t. He brought his usual tallies, about the bushels of barley and the number of yearling stock. I’d wondered if you’d introduce written records, but apparently you haven’t.”
“I’ve suggested it,” said Jane somewhat stiffly. Harry could neither read nor write and didn’t, he had said, want his wife showing off a skill he hadn’t got himself. She had brought two books of verse with her from Allerbrook, but the moment Harry saw her reading, he had turned crimson and said, “Now, maid, there’s no time for fiddle-faddles like readin’ in a place like Rixons. Readin’s a waste of time.”
She often wondered just what Francis had said when he went to offer her to Harry as a wife. But Harry was used to thinking of women as being there to do as fathers, brothers and husbands told them. Francis had probably said he wanted a match for his sister somewhere nearby and added a few words about Jane’s virtuous nature and Harry had said thank-you and when can we tie the knot? And that was that.
Now she said, “Harry prefers to go on doing things the way he’s used to.”
“Well, it’s for him to say. I won’t stop for dinner, Jane. I’ll see Harry another time. I’ll get my horse now. Take good care of Tobias.”
Riding out of the farmyard, Francis felt relief. He had broken the deadlock. Some sort of social link could now be forged between Allerbrook and Rixons. It would be more natural to be on good terms with his own sister. When he married a new wife of his own…if he ever did…no doubt she would expect it.
The House of Allerbrook Page 12